Professor dies in Mt. Whitney fall

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — California authorities say a community college professor from Texas fell to his death while climbing Mount Whitney.

The National Park Service said Friday that search crews recovered the body of Dawson Johnson, 75, from the mountain’s north slope at an elevation of 13,300 feet on Thursday.

Johnson, of Redwater, Texas, had been hiking with his wife in Sequoia National Park on Tuesday when he decided to take a solo hike to Mount Whitney, where other hikers reported seeing him on a trail that approaches the summit. After Johnson failed to return to his campsite by the next morning, his wife contacted park rangers to report him missing.

When he arrived at the Texas border, Celvyn Mejia Romero was a scared 10-year-old with a machete scar and memories of a murdered uncle as reminders of why he’d embarked on a long, perilous journey from Honduras.

He feared staying in his homeland and desperately wanted to join his mother in the U.S. In July 2002, he and two cousins — 6 and 14 — ended up near Brownsville after tra